I cannot help you pay your rising gas bills or grocery tabs, but I might be able to help you shave another bill that may be causing budget strain! Car insurance is very competitive these days, and you should be looking around for the best rates from top companies that are available in your town or city. In other words, every so often, you owe it to your budget to do some car insurance shopping.

See, your premiums will depend upon many factors, but the company you use is a big one. Other factors that different insurers consider are age, driving history, zip code, and even the type of car. Additional consideration is given to defensive driving class, safety features and anti-theft devices, and even a consumer credit report.

You need to find the company that gives the best discounts for the things you already have in your favor. For instance, you could have a great driving history with long years of ticket free and accident free driving. But a lower credit score can still keep some companies from giving you the best rate! You need to find an insurer who does not consider credit, and which gives more credit for a good driving history. Of course, if your credit report is great, but you have had a couple of claims in the last few years, you would want to look for a company that will forgive accidents, but looks at credit reports!

Another popular discount comes from combining multiple policies with one insurer. If you have more than one driver in your household, or you also need home insurance, be sure to get quotes for everything you need. One insurer may be 10% higher on their auto premium, but give you a 30% discount on your home insurance when it is combined with another policy!

You cannot always assume the popular discount insurers will be the cheapest ones for you! Some of them do not insure homes, for instance, and a multiple policy discount may actually work out better for your family.

If you are shopping for a new car, be sure and consider the cost of your premiums in your new budget. Sometimes a newer and safer car will actually be cheaper to insure than an older model. However, a high horsepower car will almost certainly get assigned a higher premium rate than a nice, sedate sedan.

If you are not purchasing a new car, but just want to keep your rates lower, you may want to find out if you can do anything to earn a discount from insurers. For instance, driver's safety courses are inexpensive and do not take that much time. And yet, a few hours spent in a course can save you hundreds of dollars in premiums every year.

These extra steps are particularly important if you need to insure a younger driver, or a driver who has had some claims in the last few years. A 10% to 20% discount may not seem like much if your premium is only $50 a month. But a more challenged driver, with a $200 a month driver can save almost $500 a year by finding a 20% discount!

Keep in mind, that the discounts keep adding up. For instance, some safety features are worth a 30% discount, and a driver safety course may shave off another 10%, and so you have actually saved 40%!

If your family insurance adds up to a few hundred dollars every month, this is worth looking into. A $300 a month premium for auto and home policies could be reduced to $180! That $120 in savings, spread over a year, is over $1400. So you can see that a little time spent doing some car insurance shopping can certainly pay off for you!